Ezio Healthy and Camp NaNoWriMo

Since August 1st at midnight, I have been spending a great deal of time drafting the second half of Kodiak Rising. I had been thinking of it as a three-part novel but it could prove to only be a two-parter. We shall see where Jake goes on his travels.

It’s been an interesting road that Jake and I have traveled on in the last year. We started knowing very little about his past and were able to work through those problems together. As he was relearning and remembering his history I was discovering it for the first time. Now with his memory intact we are free to explore an alien world in search of a lost friend!

This world is massive and was the original concept of the creation of the novel. My writing partner spent a great deal of time here on his part one, but Jake has only just arrived! It’s a chance for us to see a different side of this place, one that his character may be totally unaware of.

It’s a great joy and privileged to write with a partner. You have someone to bounce idea’s off of. Someone to motivate you to keep going, even if you think it’s total rubbish! And when you’re out of idea’s, you can read their work to help inspire yours! And when you can tie two completely different works together it’s a fantastic feeling.

With a higher daily word count than I am accustomed to be working on, I am finding I am rather creatively exhausted. I have a higher daily goal than what is set for the 31 day long month. Indeed I am attempting to get to 2,000 words a day, which I have already succeeded at doing. On Day Two, I am already at 4,900 + words. With the rest of the evening off and most of tomorrow and Saturday I can easily front load. I wish every month were a NaNo Month!

There is just something special about hundreds of people cheering you on as they join you in “30 days of literary abandon!” And being in a facebook group only helps accentuate the wonder of the experience. Someone just this morning posted they were at a word count of 10,000+!!! What an accomplishment on only the second day! I remember hitting 10,000 with Kodiak Rising Part One. It was the first time I had done something so bold and felt a tremendous sense of pride in myself for staying the course and not getting board. It took me five days to get there, and will probably take me another five this time around as well.

Seeing the little chart rise up as the words flow out is a great visual reminder of what you’re working for and during the Camp months, you are assigned a “cabin” of other writers. You are able to see their progress as well and chat with them about how they are doing. I am encouraged to see some of my cabin mates with high word counts as well and wish them all luck on their travels!

We just returned from Ezio’s first vet appointment and received some good news. The little one has a case of worms, which is fairly normal for kittens. So he was given a treatment right away which should knock that right out of his system. Other than that he’s a normal healthy kitten. He tested negative for feline leukemia and I breathed a sigh of relief. On the 13th he will go in for his neutering and then on the 23rd or so he’ll go back for his second round of boosters and to check on those worms.

He had Rufus had shared a litter box in the last few days, but the vet seemed rather unfazed by that. He said that the eggs normally take seven to fourteen days to hatch and that if we clean the litter box religiously for the next three weeks Rufus should be fine. I will scoop it anytime I see one of them go in, and Ezio has a separate litter box for the night time or when we are gone in his room. When he goes back for his boosters in three weeks I’ll bring a stool sample from each cat and have them check, just in case.

Now my two boys are both sleeping happily on the floor. They have been playing and romping more in the last day and are even giving each other kisses and meowing politely at one another as they pass. The moment I see them snuggeling is the moment that the master bedroom becomes available for Ezio. Since his entrance into our home he has been kept out of Rufus’ territory, but eventually I may need to lock them both up in the air conditioning.

This summer has been rough for cats. With the heat index over 104 for days or weeks at a time, it’s been very important to keep Rufus in the air conditioned bedroom and out of the humid rest of the house. The heat wave has since broken and as we come into August fall will bring the cool air…but August has only just begun.

With 800+ words on this latest entry, I think it is time to return to Jake and the Kodiak. I now leave you, gentle reader, with a picture of my kitten and his striking orange eyes.

Richard Brautigan is my favorite author and a great inspiration to me. One of my early works was a story titled “Brautigan’s Girl” where Richard Brautigan was my imaginary friend. The project remains unfinished to this day, sadly.